When you are driving along and come to a red light, when do you start to apply the brakes? In other words, when do you start to stop.

We all know that going through a red light is not only illegal, it’s dangerous.But you can’t just zoom up to a red light at full speed and then slam the brakes. There are other variables to consider: whether there are cars ahead of you or people in the cross walk; how fast you are going; whether the road is dry or icy; etc. All of that (and more) will affect when you begin to apply the brakes.

I’m finding that observing mitzvot (commandments) is very similar.

Of course, people argue that the mitzvot are arbitrary, optional aspects of our life. That they are something we do for our own personal satisfaction. They may very well be right.

But even in that case, nothing changes about this discussion. If you aren’t going to stop at the red light, then don’t. Barrel right on through. There are even cases where people who would normally stop at a light will argue it’s not necessary: At 2am in a one-horse town, when you know there is nobody else around, you may decide that the red light is nothing but a social expectation and that sitting there waiting for an electronic timer to click is a foolish and sycophantic adherence to the letter of the law without recognition of the spirit and intent.

BUT… regardless of your view of obligatory nature of the commandments, IF you are going to observe them, you still must consider how you are going to do so. You are going to have to decide when you are going to slow down so that you don’t cross “that line” – the identified demarkation between observing the mitzvah and breaking it.

Some drivers really do race right to the very edge of the curb (or the bumper ahead of them) and then hit the brakes, while others ride the break from a half mile back. Still, everyone’s intention is the same: Don’t run into the cross walk.

The commandments expressed in Torah for keeping kosher state:

don’t eat blood
eat only certain animals
don’t boil a kid (goat) in the milk of its mother
Period. No mention of 2 sets of dishes. No injunction against cheeseburgers. No statement that you have to double-foil-wrap your potato in an unkosher oven.

So why do we do it?

The red light(s) above are very clear. What isn’t clear is what we need to do to avoid crossing that line. Some people are comfortable running right to the edge – no blood, no bacon wrapped shrimp, no goat chops in goat-milk-cream sauce. Everything else is fair game. Other people feel the need for two dishwashers, to carefully check produce for bugs, to learn as much as they can about how and where their food is produced.

Neither approach, in my opinion, is necessarily bad. Like driving, everyone has their style.

Of course, this analogy can only go so far on a single tank of metaphorical gas. Traffic laws are enforced by humans, and ultimately affect others in a very direct way. Kashrut is not “enforced” by anyone – you don’t get a treif ticket if you chow down on a shrimp eggroll. Nor is there any impact on the people around us for our own dietary observances, or lack thereof. Traffic laws are meant to be more logical than not. Kashrut, as I have mentioned before, is understood to be inherently non-logical (which is not to say it’s illogical, only that human logic can’t be brought to bear to understand why we ought to keep kosher. This is one of God’s “do it ’cause I said so” rules).

But in answer to the person who looks at another’s kashrut observance and thinks “why would they need to take it that far?!”, my answer is

“What is the purpose of the covenant? Many fragmentary answers have been given in the tri-millennial & variegated history of Judaism, and perhaps only this much of a generalization is possible – that, located between Creation & Redemption, a Jew testifies to the reality of the first and the hope for the second. This testimony has a positive and a negative aspect. The positive is the possibility, unheard of prior to the advent of Judaism, of a mutual relation between G-d beyond the heaven of heavens and man on earth. The negative is against all the false gods – against idolatry.”

Most have forgotten that the Torah is a Walk with HaShem and not a religion. We have forgotten that the Torah requires us to walk and behave within and according to His commandments, statutes, decrees, and ordinances at all times. It tells us that these are eternally binding even to a thousand generations, and to discuss them with our children – when we walk on the way, when we sit down, when we retire and when we arise, and to live it out at the market and at the workplace. The Torah tells us, “And you shall love your brother as yourself.” (Lev. 18:19), it screams to us, “You shall surely pursue righteousness!” (Deut. 16:20) – yet we hate our brothers and pursue honor and filthy, unrighteous lucre. Thus, the hand of faith has been weakened. Most of the Nation has left the camp of the believers, for not many remain faithful; there are virtually no men of truth. Very little light that illuminates in this world of dark corruption.
Even so, that is exactly what the Torah is. It is a light to a dark world, as are those whom bear it’s truth. It’s purpose is to free mankind, and lead all toward total spiritual/physical perfection. Furthermore, it is HaShem’s covenant, made for all of humanity, which even rules and regulates the natural laws of the infinite and boundless Universe. Which means that the Torah is infinite, transparent to our soul [neshama], and is transcendently beyond the finite grasp of man. A very discerning & insightful man (Rabbi Marc Howard Wilson) once shared with me, these words of wisdom:
The finite may try to grasp the Infinite, though it is like taking a sip from a “Raging-Firehose”
Therefore, only the ALL-Transcendent One can give it’s true interpretation. Moreover, one must also keep in mind; as the covenant is eternal so is knowledge, wisdom, understanding, revelation, truth, and onward. These gifts [obtainable by man, only from G-d], as others like them, go on and on ad infinitum.
All are progressive. No one is absolute or exclusive.
Rather, all are one and all emanate from our One and Only who is magnanimous in all His deeds, and gives freely to all who would humbly beseech Him with a sincere heart. He is His Knowledge, He is His Wisdom, He is His Understanding, and He is His Truth [He is His “Light”]!!! Nevertheless, the questions remain. How does one successfully walk with The Most High? By what means can one who is finite receive true interpretation from The Infinite?
Is it merely enough to involve ourselves in study and absorption in prayer? How will we know and recognize when He has answered our cry, our petition, or request?

Traif is a new restaurant that says it is going to celebrate pork and shellfish and I find it really funny, some of you may find it sad that a Jewish guy is opening up a restaurant devoted to his favorite foods which happen to be the farthest from kosher you can possibly get, but I just find it hilarious and anyone who eats vegetarian out can’t go there and try some of that left wing modern orthodox funny stuff because everything is Traif @ Traif.

Thanks to the first commenter I decided to add what I would do if I were to open a mamish Traif restaurant.

Heshy Fried has decided to open the worlds first all Traif Restaurant:

Featuring favorites such as non-bodek lettuce, unchecked strawberries in a non-mevushel vinaigrette.

We even have cholov yisroel hard cheese made from rennet.

Be sure to check out the weekly mothers milk specials – including kid goat cooked in mothers milk and roast brisket of beef cooked like bubbe used to make it with the added flavor of cholov yisroel milk.

We have pas yisroel and yoshon flour, don’t worry someone took challah but it was baked on shabbos by Jews.

Our Salad bar features many choices of unchecked leafy greens that are sure to add crunch with all those invisible bugs that we didn’t wash off.

Our water is unfiltered even though we are located in Brooklyn where the infestation happened.

Those blood spots in your omelet add a real flavor.

We bet you never had glatt kosher pork before, all the mooms and chalev has been removed.

Chassidishe shechita filet minion.

A full desert menu featuring triangle-K favorites such as little debbie cakes, wonder bread french toast and motts applesauce.

All of our wine is non-mevushal and we make sure to have idol worshipers open the bottles and look at the wine before it’s served.

A mashgiach temidi is on hand to make sure our products are as traif as possible – he is a certified apikorus, kofer and one of the last remaining believers of Shabetai Tzvi.

I absolutely love long Jewish holidays like Pesach. I know that many folks can’t wait for it to be over, whenever someone says that on shabbos I want to smack them, you can’t talk about such holiness like shabbos and say that you want it over with already – why are you keeping shabbos if you hate it and don’t believe in it’s healing properties? But Pesach heartache is understandable, people just can’t go that long without pizza, can they? I surely can (I haven’t had milchigs in 2 months, I miss it dearly), yes it’s a royal pain to eat overpriced chocolate bars for energy on long distant hikes and bike rides, but I deal and I love Pesach in all of its 8 days of glory. I also work for a company that gave me off for all of Pesach, I could understand the pain that people have when they have to use up all of their vacation days for Jewish holidays, although they might want to have the thought that they wouldn’t have that job unless God wanted them to and therefore God knew they would have to give up their vacation days willingly to please him.

I used to hate the seder, I think it could be better, probably because most people don’t really do the seder right, they tell technical divrei torah which have nothing to do with telling the story of leaving Egypt and then they sing traditional songs while the people who can read super fast go about it on their own. I guess I wish sedarim were a bit more interactive and actually did make children ask question – because I have seen that maybe twice, it seems that children only ask questions because in yeshiva they tell you that children are supposed to ask questions.

Think about it, the story of the Jews leaving Egypt is probably the most kick-ass story in biblical Judaism, Chanukah, Shavuos and Purim don’t come close to Pesach, they don’t have as much action going down. I like to think that the story of the Jews leaving Egypt starts with the story of Yosef and his brothers, which could be made into a movie, simply amazing the drama of that story. Then the pharaoh getting all hard on the Jews, flip flopping his political views kind of like Obama on Israel and then we build the pyramids which are super cool, although using babies as stones isn’t cool. The plagues, holy crap people, I can’t believe that during the seder, the attention of the plagues is lost on a little dabbing of wine and proclaiming the plagues – we should talk about this stuff, it’s super cool and everyone out of yeshiva doesn’t talk about it for 2 months leading up to Pesach.

What I really want to know is what other plagues were there? I always hear about these midrashim that say there were a slew of plagues besides for the ten biggies. Did everyone’s clothing burn up in the middle of the marketplace forcing everyone to walk back home naked? Did the camels start eating people? Maybe they ran out of parking spots and everyone had to circle their camels for days just to find one.

“Let My People Go” is probably the most bad-ass line in the whole torah, it’s not even made up, it’s right there in the scripture, not some Charleton Heston line. Did you ever think about the fact that pretty much everyone was black in Egypt, wasn’t Moshe Rabeinu black, that means everyone was way cooler than we can even imagine.

The splitting of the sea, that alone is enough to excite any scientist into explaining the prevailing winds and how they must have blown hard enough to split the sea. I do love how non-believing scientists have tried to explain how splitting of the sea were possible in a book they view as mythological, do their endowments and grants fund mythological explorations? I remember sitting in ninth grade learning about how any Jew could reach into the water and pull out whatever they wanted, I was sitting in class daydreaming about walking on the sea bed, chugging a mountain dew that I had just pulled out of the wall of water and thinking about which Ben and Jerrys flavor I wanted to pull out next, as I was day dreaming I was wondering if the ground was muddy and if the Jews were all wearing Tevas or Birkenstock sandals.

I also look forward to Peach because to me it’s like having a bunch of shabbosim in a row. I know a lot of people don’t like the whole shabbos chol hamoid thing because they want to be able to hit p as many Boro Park carnivals, Lipa Schmeltzer shows and kosher circuses as possible. I wonder if the “things to do on pesach sections” in those free community advertisement books they have in heimishe establishments are cut down this year, although they usually include the same things every year. I can sum it up for you, you can go to the Liberty Science Center, Ellis Island, The Tenement Museum, The Museum of Natural History and Uncle Moishes Carnival on 13th avenue and 44th street.

Pesach has a shorter less physically intensive davening than succos, although I still love succos and it’s my favorite holiday for obvious reasons (outdoors nut and honey on challah lover here) I still like Pesach for its length, one of the reasons I dislike shavuos and Rosh Hashanah are their lack of length, the first day is always warm up and by the time you’re in spiritual high mode everyone’s making havdalah, I know that both Shavuos and Rosh Hashanah have the days leading up to them that are supposed to put us in that frame of mind – but I need a little more starting time. Of course Pesach has starting time because of shabbos hagadol (where I was this shabbos doesn’t even have shul on shabbos afternoon) and cleaning my car and apartment for chometz got me in the Pesach frame of mind hey isn’t that a Billy Joel song?

I am not one for spending holidays with family, mostly because my family lives in a place I find kills my spiritual state and makes me hate being religious, except before my dad got remarried and I would take him with me to my friends houses. Actually one of the things I dread about marriage is falling in love with a girl from a place that I don’t care for. The last two years I did Pesach with one of my best buds in Denver, he would set up all the meals so that we could get the best food and company at the same time – I am the same way with meal settings, there is a lot of detail that goes into spending shabbos or a holiday somewhere, it’s never simple. This year I am staying in Northern California and looking forward to my first two days in San Francisco, and the last two days in the Sierra Nevada near Tahoe where I plan to try out my hand at gold panning.